Dreaming of Royalty
by Lady Eleanor Boleyn
Summary: What if Anne Boleyn had dreamed of the Mirror of Erised as a child? Seen herself as Queen of England when she was just seven? Would she have started out differently? Read on and find out. Slight HP x-over.


_AN: The idea for this story came in part from Kitty Bridgeta's "Mirror, Mirror", which is one of my absolute favourite stories on this site – I hope you don't mind, Kitty! - and in part from a dream I had the other night, so it may seem a little odd, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. R and R, please!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything – the mirror is J.K Rowling's, the idea of the "Petite Bande" is Jean Plaidy's, and the rest belong to history, where they will continue to fascinate people for the rest of eternity, most likely!_

_Dreaming of Royalty_

"Bonne nuit, mademoiselle Annie." The elderly Frenchwoman stooping over the narrow bed murmured softly, kissing the brow of her seven year old charge before smoothing the eiderdown with the flat of her hand and stepping back into the shadows of the small bedchamber.

"Bonne nuit, Simonette." Anne Boleyn's sleepy whisper echoed through the dark as she rolled over. The governess paused on the threshold, waiting for the little girl's breathing to even, signifying that she was asleep, and then crept from the room.

****

The walls of the unfamiliar castle rose from thin air and materialised around Anne as she slept, so that, even as she knew she was lying in her narrow little bed in the room off Madame Marguerite's, when she opened her eyes, she seemed to have been transported to quite another place altogether.

She was standing in a deserted torch lit passageway, which she had never seen before. Portraits lined the walls, staring down at her with what seemed to Anne to be hostile faces.

Anne was generally a very courageous little girl – many of the courtiers copied Madame Marguerite and called her "the bold little Boleyn", but being alone in a dark, unknown place, with strange paintings seeming to glare down at her through the gloom – even if it was only in her sleep – was enough to unnerve even her.

She began to walk swiftly down the passage, footsteps echoing as she did so. As she passed the portraits, catching glimpses of them out of the corner of her eye, some of them appeared to move, to turn their heads to follow her progress between their silent ranks.

That did it. Stifling a scream, Anne began to flee down the stone corridor, trying every door she passed in panicked haste. Every one was locked. Every one she tried refused to move. Every one she failed to open caused the terror inside of her to rise a little, until, by the time she reached the last door in the passage, she was almost choking on her own fear.

To her relief, this time, when she slapped the palm of her hand against what appeared to be a solid oak door, it melted away at her touch, leaving nothing but a gaping hole behind. Anne dived through without thinking… and found herself in a small antechamber, which held nothing but a large gilded mirror, which, as soon as Anne glanced towards it, held her attention. It seemed to be giving off a soft glow, beckoning her forwards, further into the room, further from the doorway, and closer to it.

Transfixed, Anne moved towards it, raising her eyes to take it in fully. The top was curved, and intricately carved with what appeared to be some sort of pattern, or... no, wait, it wasn't a pattern. It was lettering. Anne craned her neck, squinting upwards into the dark. Suddenly it all came clear – _I wohs ton rouy ecaf, tub rouy tsepeed erised. _

Anne blinked in surprise. "That doesn't make sense." She thought, but dismissed it as just being part of what was already a very odd dream. Instead, she allowed her eyes to travel down to the image in front of her. And gasped.

It was of her, but not as she stood there, in her white nightshift, with her hair all braided for sleeping. Oh no.

She was grown-up, and she was sitting on an ornate golden throne, her dark purple gown edged with cloth of gold cut wide to disguise the swell of her belly. St Edward's Crown rested on her head. She was a Queen.

Anne stretched out a disbelieving hand to the mirror, but it melted away at her touch, leaving nothing but the image, before that too shimmered and, a moment later, melted away.

****

Anne sat bolt upright, breathing hard. The light was already streaming into her bedchamber, but, as she started to look about herm, she saw nothing, the image from her dream remaining strong in her mind and blocking out all else. Why would she become a Queen? Her father was nought but a knight and an ambassador.

"_But your mother is sister to the second most powerful man in England. Thomas Howard, 3__rd__ Duke of Norfolk. A strain of Plantagenet blood runs in her veins. And in yours, Anne Boleyn. Why shouldn't you become a Queen?"_ a voice suddenly seemed to say quietly from behind her – even though there was no one there. All of a sudden, Anne, for all her youth, felt herself fill with resolve. She would see that image become reality. She would one day seat herself on an ornate golden throne like the one in her dream. She would become a Queen.

And she would start by observing those around her who were born to greatness – born to fill the highest positions in any land, born with royal blood in their veins. King Francis, Queen Claude, and Madame Marguerite, Duchess of Alencon. She would watch them and learn all they had to teach her.

Anne sprang out of bed, eager to start the day.

****

Over the next few days, weeks and months, everyone at the French Court noticed a great change in the little Anne – "the Duchess's Boleynette" as she was affectionately known in the "Petite Bande" and its outer circle. Gone was the homesick little girl who was trying her hardest to be brave in company. In her place was a clever, pleasing little thing, who was somehow able to be everywhere, to help everyone, to learn everything, and yet remain witty and calm while she did it. All the time. "It was" as her governess Simonette wrote in one of her regular letters to Anne's father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, "as though she were training herself – training herself the same way one trains a princess – training herself to be fit to rule an empire."

When Sir Thomas received the letter, he brooded over its contents for several days before at last taking it to his wife.

"Elizabeth, listen to this. It's a letter from Madame Simonette, Anne's governess at the French Court."

"Oh. Is Anne well?"

"Well enough, it seems, but…much changed. It appears – well, hear it for yourself." Sir Thomas read the letter out loud, omitting nothing. When he had finished, husband and wife stared at one another.

"It's nonsense. Madame Simonette must be imagining things." Elizabeth Howard said at last.

"Is it though?" Thomas Boleyn murmured to himself.

"Of course it's nonsense. Anne's just a child!"

"An ambitious, determined child. I wonder…"

At the distant look on his face, the one he always wore when plotting and scheming for his family's advancement, Elizabeth snapped. Leaping up, she slapped him across the face, hard enough to leave a mark well into the following day.

"Get a hold on yourself, man! She's seven years old! Granted, you might want to start looking for a betrothal for her, but tell me, husband, when was it that people stopped thinking of ambition as a sin, and started thinking of it as a virtue?"

Without waiting for him to answer, Elizabeth snatched up her discarded sewing and stalked from the room.

****

The years passed, however, and soon Anne was no longer the English rose of a seven year old who had had the dream of being seated on a throne as an anointed Queen. She was a graceful, dark, seductively pretty young woman with a brilliant mind to match. She was Duchess Marguerite's favourite companion, the muse of many of the Court poets and artists, the wittiest of the wits. She was the best of the riders, the sweetest voiced of the singers, the most graceful of the dancers in any masque. She was possessed of a brilliance that stood out even here, at this most brilliant of Courts.

And yet, even as she glittered alongside her mistress at the centre of the "Petite Bande" – indeed, of the Court – the teenage Anne Boleyn kept herself aloof. Not a single one of the young men with whom she flirted, danced and laughed really felt that they knew her. She was a true temptress.

****

In 1522, her father summoned her home. Marguerite, the only one she had ever dared tell of her dream, and that only because the risk of her using it as a piece of wit to amuse her brother King Francis was far outweighed by the amount of help and advice she would be able to give, embraced Anne, and presented her with a necklace hung with a golden B and three pearl drops, saying "My Boleynette. May God guide your hand to the sceptre that you so wish for, and, perhaps, when we next meet, _I _shall be the one kneeling before _you_. God be with you, Mademoiselle Boleyn. God be with you."

Anne thanked her with the intriguing half-smile that had become so natural to her, dropped a deep, careful curtsy, and departed for England.

****

The first time she saw the King, he had been out hunting with a few of his gentlemen, and she had been riding with her sister Mary and brother George. Despising the circumstances, but vowing to make the best of them, she sent the other two on ahead with a word, lingering by her horse's stall as King Henry VIII himself, the one they called "Great Harry", stopped by the door. Anne greeted him with a swift, formal curtsy, and the two of them stood there exchanging small talk for a minute or so, but Anne, other than the curtsy, never gave any sign that she would treat the King any differently from any of her French suitors – she kept her eyes averted, pretending to busy herself with her horse until he had bid her farewell and gone. It was a trick she had learnt from Francoise, King Francis's favourite mistress – never ruin the first meeting with a King by treating him formally if you can at all help it.

When he had at last left her in peace, Anne allowed herself the luxury of a smile as she leaned against her horse's flank. That had gone very well indeed.

****

And so did the next couple of years. Anne subtly carved herself a niche at the English Court – a niche as the most sophisticated young woman at Court and, along with her brother and a few other close associates, such as Henry Percy and Thomas Wyatt, formed her very own "Petite Bande". Because of this, she always remained on the very edge of King Henry's conscious mind, and when his Queen, Catherine of Aragon, ceased to bleed, meaning that she was a barren woman and King Henry had no legitimate heir other than his young daughter, Princess Mary, it was to her that he turned. Secretly rejoicing, Anne welcomed his advances, but only so far as to allow him to realise that she would be worth pursuing further. Then she began to withdraw from him, pulling herself away from the richest, the most handsome, but also the most dangerous man in England. King Henry could not believe she had the audacity to spurn him so openly, but despite himself, he found himself drawn to her spirit. After all, a man such as he only truly desires what he cannot have. He could have discarded her and chased another young girl, but he chose to play the lover.

At his command, Sir Thomas Boleyn and Sir George Boleyn were enobled to Viscount Rochford and Lord George Boleyn, and Anne herself was showered with little gifts and trinkets. Still she refused to yield. Anne dreamt of the mirror and the image it had contained every night, and every day, using the wiles and wit that she had been taught by the lecherous French ladies, and the brilliant Marguerite, Duchess of Alencon, she ensnared the King of England more and more tightly, binding him to her with gossamer like threads, until his only desire was her; his only concern how to please her.

That was the day she showed him the passage in Leviticus. That was the day she prompted him to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine, and he did. For love of her, he did it. It was a long, hard struggle, and some days even Anne believed that the world was going mad and they with it, but even just the thought of the image in the mirror was enough to hold her steady on her course and hold Henry's heart; keep him on his. It was enough to enable her to brazen out the rumours and disgust that were rocking Christendom at the scandal of her behaviour. It was enough to keep her determined to remain a virgin, not to share a bed with Henry until they were married. To remain as chaste as Diana the huntress until she could sense the weight of St Edward's Crown on her head. To keep Henry lusting after her until at least the betrothal vows had been said.

****

Anne rose from her bed when the clock struck midnight. Bending over her sister and cousin, she shook them awake and had them dress her in a gown of dark blue silk. Leaving her dark hair loose and tumbled, she slipped, with the two of them following her, down to the Chapel Royal at Greenwich Palace. The King greeted her quietly with a passionate kiss to her forehead, and her brother George stood behind him to kiss her hand and take her up the aisle to the altar, where the King's Chaplain heard first the King's vows and then her own, before declaring them man and wife and allowing the King to kiss her on the lips. As she went back to her bedchamber, her brother, sister and cousin, all of whom had stood as witnesses to her secret royal wedding, and fell asleep again, Anne smiled triumphantly. She had done it. She was a Queen. All that remained was to realise the exact image that she had seen in the mirror.

****

At last, it came to pass. Henry had his marriage to Catherine declared null and void, the Princess Mary declared a bastard, and openly announced their marriage, which had taken place almost four months earlier.

Two months after that, Anne, who was six months pregnant with the King's child, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. She wore the scarlet robes of state, which were trimmed with ermine, but beneath that, her gown was deep purple edged with cloth of gold. She swore the vows of fealty to England, as was required, before she was anointed and seated on the ornate golden throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury placed St Edward's crown on her head, and handed her the orb and sceptre. Then he stepped back, and Anne was free to look ahead over the crowd. She did not even have to think about what she was seeing. It was exactly what she had seen in her dream, right down to the jewels – amethysts, pearls and diamonds – that were encrusted on her dress and her robes of state.

She had finally completed a journey that had started seventeen years earlier, when she was just seven. She had seen herself a Queen then, and now she was one in truth, She was Queen Anne Boleyn-Tudor – Queen of England, Ireland and France.

She was Queen, and soon she would give the King an heir. Anne didn't doubt that she was carrying a Prince in her belly. She would give King Henry the heir he craved so badly. Surely. It was her destiny – it had to be her destiny. She had to become "Good Queen Anne" the same way Philippa of Hainault had become "Good Queen Phillippa" by interceding on the common people's behalf and giving her husband sons and daughters to carry on his line. She had to and she would.

Smiling with a complacent confidence born of ruling King Henry's heart for so many years, Anne stepped down off her throne, and walked out through the doors of the Abbey, on her way to her Coronation Banquet. All that would come. For today, though, she could just savour the moment.


End file.
